


Heedless Oblivion

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Space, Blood, Body Horror, Clones, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Original Character - Freeform, Space Opera, Stockholm Syndrome, dub con, science fiction AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:45:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4044640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scrapping in space and staying a step or two ahead of the law, the kids and their guardians find an old derelict floating near the Fringe of Alternian space. What they find inside will challenge their troll business-partners in ways that they could never imagine. (Containing one deranged no longer empress, clones, space opera, multiple non-embodied intelligences, biowire, and lots and lots of bodies!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two Sp00ky

**Condesce** :

_When the fades found you, you knew that your voyage was over._

_The technicians screamed at their consoles. This was not productive and you disapproved. The noise was cacophonous enough that you headed toward the interior of the ship and let your command staff do their glubbing jobs._

_Somewhere behind your thoracic supports you knew that there was nothing to be done. Avoiding all of it -- the thrashing and the blood made it less real._

_Instead of bearing witness like you should have done as a living deity, you sat with your ever-companion at the base of his pillar and you waited to see how things would shake out._

_Perhaps at first there was some hope in your mind. You thought that maybe you could change how the outcome would go. There was the possibility that the reports about this carp were wrong or exaggerated. Who in the fleet truly could resist a reelly big whopper of a story?_

_Command practically thrived on a very active and intense bullshit contest._

_In this one instance every coddamned word was true. True and perhaps a bit understated._

_The shit turned the air foul. Soured the water. Even the Generals were not safe in their tanks. Soon enough the water turned murky, spoiled from the rotting bodies inside. The vents stopped working when the ancillary helmsmen went down. All small functions of the ship that were not regulated by your personal servant ceased._

_Your companions were the biowires curving and coiling above you, trying to reestablish connection with data that was not being transmitted. Silence folded in slowly like the hadal zones of the oceans at home just before you descended into your lusus’ many arms._

_You had made sure that she was taken care of - there had been talk of a Glub. This was not that. That was not a thing that was supposed to have happened. None of this was supposed to have happened._

_If you cried, no one saw you because they were all dead. Your companion did not see you because he did not care to look at you unless ordered to. Not even with the many eyes that he had installed inside of his larger shell and outside of his body._

_He started vomiting blood around the third night._

_You put him in a bio-stasis pod and plugged him into the wall. Sopor killed just about everything in it, other than trolls. It was your hope that it would be enough. Between the sterile pod and your powers he would live._

_He would always live._

_You were a Witch of Life._

_You willed it and it would be._

_When the strings started to cloud your vision you wondered. This was not natural. You had pupated into adulthood long before any of this had ever happened. Still, lethargy overtook your body while blood dripped out of your orifices. Had the Old Man been here he would have damn near orgasmed over the sheer amount of pigment to make paint out of._

_You were so far from home._

_Maybe you would wake up somewhere different and somewhen different. Maybe this would not have had to happen._

_You were Her Imperious Condescension and you went to sleep in a dead ship with your Helmsman, a binary system of two stars of life in a swathe of corpses._

*

**[Dave]**

“That shit is so haunted that I cannot even words Strider. I cannot words. There is no way I’m working this job. Take someone else. Fuck that with both of my bulges.”

Hearing Sollux Captor say so many things that had voiced dental fricatives was sort of the best part of his day. Still, there were bills that needed paying and usually Captor was his best Alternian contact after Karkat. Said beau was still laid up and stashed safely with Jade and Rose on the _Void Walker_ and was not involved in this discussion. Had he been, the hilarity factor would have gone up in increments of ten with every passing minute that they continued to communicate.

“But see here’s the thing. Dirk said that it was good. Still viable, no pollutants scarier than some of the other shit we’ve salvaged. And you don’t find that quality of alloy anywhere dude. No where. Where is it that it is to be found? Oh wait, we cannot reach that place because it does not exist. Some of those alloys have been gone for millennia. It’s a metallurgist's wet dream. I know that we kind of both thought of Zahhak there, but let’s just bring it back.”

Sollux had not disconnected nor blown up his interface so this line of questioning was looking promising. Instead the pilot was looking at his overlays and frowning.

“I don’t feel this, Dave. I mean it. If you need a tech consult, you can call but I’m not getting on that ship.”

“Is this a case of like spooky troll shit?”

“Spooker than you have a right to know. There’s a fuckorgy of terror in there and I don’t want any part of it. _Dualist_ out.”  

The feed cut abruptly and attempts to reconnect were rebuffed. Dave sighed, massaging around the connection jack in the back of his neck. Dirk turned at his station and tilted his head.

“Real smooth there.”

“Shut the fuck up dude. It would have taken forever for the two of you to stop fucking talking about code and shit and the call would have taken double the time for the same answer. Dude’s fucking stubborn and he won’t be cajoled.”

“Captor’s creepy-vibe is usually dead-on. Maybe we should skip this one.”

“The bills argue very strenuously that we should not.”

Dirk nodded, pulling up a readout of their financial situation. Some things were in the red and could not be left unattended.

“If it were anything else I would be down. But...”

“It’s John and Jake.”

Dirk’s mouth pulled into a hard and unpleasant line. “Starting docking procedures. The computer’s AI is...insane. To use a human word for an inhuman thing. It’s giving me gibberish and nonsense. We’ll have to treat this whole ingress as entrance into a hostile situation.”  

*

No one in their right mind would take their helmets off in this kind of a situation. Even though readings indicated that the air was mostly breathable if a little high in neon, it was sort of courting bad luck to assume that everything was safe. Dave did not know a lot -- his life had been kind of short when compared to some of the other clones from their facility. However, what he understood empathetically was that space wanted to kill you. It wanted to kill you dead. If one gave space the chance, space would make it’s move like a stone-faced one-legged bounty hunter off of Nabunet who knew that you owed someone money. Given then that the ship was alien and unknown and their sensors were not entirely sure what they were sensing, all contact equipment stayed firmly in place.

Dirk always took point in these situations and had done so again. Dave wished that he could be as assertive and generally deadly as both Bro and his older sibling, but wishes really did not amount to shit in the cold screaming void of space. His light bobbed carefully along the walls, down the floors, up along the vent systems and then in front of them in a continuous circuit.

“It’s really goddamn quiet.”

Dirk did not look back, but nodded his agreement. The com-equipment in their headsets was sensitive enough that Dave could mutter under his breath and get picked up without being overly audible to those that might be surrounding them.

“I mean really truly. We’ve been in a lot of wrecks and some of them were horror-vid status but I think this one takes the cake. I think that the cake is gone. It has been swept into the arms of another and that pastry will never see the light of a sun again.”

Walking through the docking bay had been surreal. Mummified technicians and dockworkers  lay in piles and strange positions. Some were draped over broken and dusty consoles. Others were laid out on the floor as if they had been rolling or writhing.

On top of being disturbing, the hanger was huge. The trip across it had seemed to take double the time that it should have.

“So I’m guessing this was probably a Destroyer or something high up in this society. It kinda looks trollish? But I can’t read what’s on the wall. Is the dialect old?”

Dirk’s eyes flashed briefly orange under his visor while he cross-referenced a few things with his alternate consciousness stored at the ship.

“HAL says it’s antiquated Alternian. Some of the verb forms and patterns aren’t in use anymore. The grammar’s a little weird. That’s why we were having trouble talking to the computer -- it doesn’t understand us either. Poor thing. It’s really damaged.”

“We’re not adopting another AI. Dirk. I swear. No. Ours is gonna get territorial and then eat it.”

“I’m--HAL’s not like that.” Dirk’s tone was quiet, but playful.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t. This system’s too corrupt -- it might damage our flight nav.”

“You keep the scary computer shit away from DS. He’s my boy.”

“Uh huh.”

Any further talk of their mirrored consciousnesses stored away on the ship ceased. They had reached a fork in the hallway.

“Do we want to go right or left?”

Dirk chuckled humorlessly. “You don’t want to split up?”

Dave shook his head. “No fucking way.”

“Let’s go left. There’s more bodies that way. Anyone knows that anything worth finding is in the scarier place.”

“Of course.” Dirk turned on the top light on his encounter suit and headed down the darkened hallway.

 

 

 


	2. II. Binary System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains non-con!

II. Bianary System

  
**[Dave]** **  
**

Left turned out to be less terrible than he predicted and more frustrating. The walls teemed with an infestation of old-school biowire. This was a good thing for business. That particular breed was known both for strength and its resilience, as well as its ability to accept different levels of energy conduction within a short set of breeding modifications. The bad thing about old-school Alternian Imperial biowire was its inclination to burrow. Falling into a nest of it with exposed skin would go bad faster than deciding to sucker-punch Bro in the gut. Both experiences were likely to end in blood, but only one of them would eventually lead to death.

 

Something about the color and old Alternian technology nagged at him but the thought was not forthcoming. Maybe it would return to him later or he could ask HAL and his encyclopedic databases about whatever it was. Snapping a picture with his helmet-cam he stored it, and the curious impulse that came with it away for later review.

 

Some areas of the hallway were so clogged with sheets of magenta tendrils that they had to circle back to avoid being lovingly embraced by alien flesh-plants. Starring in his own private tentacle-hentai was not on Dave's to-do list. Particularly not with Dirk as a co-star, though he had thoughts on his brother's willingness to participate. There were other times and places to be stripped naked and caressed by moist non-human appendages, but in a dead ship was where Dave drew the line.

 

Dirk had to find the whole process as tedious as he did, but neither of them were going to tag out. They were entrenched so deep that it might be time to start thinking about commitment and joint credit accounts. They were in this adventure and backing out now would just make it awkward later.

 

What it was that they were looking for though, was slightly unclear.

 

“So how far do you want to scout before we check back in with base?”

 

Bro would be fretting-without-fretting via his com link and staring at their progress as they moved through the ship. Both of the AIs would have sensors on them as well that could be dedicated to other tasks.

 

“I want to get the lay of the sections that still have semi-usable atmosphere and figure out why we're getting life-signals. Most of the ship is depressurized and there's nothing breathable.” The pulse of Dirk's lens-overlays was soothing to Dave in moments of uncertainty. If Dirk was alive and thinking his eyes were lightly glowing, though the effect was not ever-present. Always the tactician, Dirk had made sure that the dimming function worked in conjunction with brain-response to environment. Stress, fear, or discomfort turned off the light-show.

 

“That said, there's this section and another up a few doors where there are emergency bulkheads. It is my assumption that they actually did their jobs and engaged during the initial crisis. That section of the ship has livable conditions showing. Maybe our survivors are there.”

 

Dave frowned.

 

“I guess.”

 

Anyone that survived the level of insanity surrounding them likely was not sane nor friendly. Still, Dirk had a sense about things in the same way that Sollux did. If there were survivors they would find them.

 

Getting around the bulkheads was going to be a challenge. The doors stood at ten feet and towered above the pair of them. Neither of them were small per human standards, but everything around this craft was oversized. It was another mark against wanting to encounter the owners of the ship.

 

“Sooo, what now?”

 

Dirk stood with hands on hips, observing the lines of the hallway. “I think we have to go up and over. The vents don't seal nearly as tight as the doors.”

 

Dave stared upward at the ductwork. “If this ship has defenses on par with the doors, I don't know if we could get through shutters along the ventilation system.”

 

“Really only one way to find out about that. You wanna stay down here?”

 

“Nah. Carry me like your interstellar prince.”

 

“Pff.”

 

Pulling his hover-board out of storage, Dirk tweaked the settings to adjust for a two-person load and ascended toward the ceiling. The grate was more secure than they expected. Dave stood to one side, acting as a counterbalance while Dirk took a screwdriver to it. That transitioned to taking a sonic drill to the edges. With a screech, the lattice fell into Dave's waiting hands and eventually to the floor as they dropped it. The clang echoed down the hallways and bounced off into oblivion.

 

“Well.”

 

Dirk looked at the fallen metal. “Yup.”

 

“If they didn't know that we were here before they sure as fuck do now.”

 

“There's nothing wrong with being announced.”

 

Pulling himself up into the darkness over their heads Dirk found a foothold and offered arms down. An absurd part of his brain expected Dirk to suddenly disappear into the shadows, pulled by something unseen that they had disturbed by boarding.

 

“We're going to need eyes up in here, don't look down if you don't have to. Some of the wire-nests have root-systems or tertiary branches. I can't really tell where they come into the ducts, the light's a little low.”

 

“Great. I know I wanted to be the star of a tentacle porno.”

 

“They'll just rip off a limb or two as they have no understanding of what sort of stresses our bodies can withstand. I don't think they'll really start probing. That's not the job of the systems that line walls. They like unbroken lines. Better transmission that way. Curves make them mad.” Of course he would know. There was a year or so of testing that Dave preferred not to think back to.

 

“Not helping.”

 

Wiggling up into the echoing space, Dave knocked his head on the ceiling of the vent and sighed. A small mercy in the scheme of things came in the fact that the vents were bigger than some that he had crawled through in the past. That likely was to accommodate the sorts of technicians that needed ten foot tall doors.

 

The rooms they passed over were more of the same that they had initially encountered – dead technicians thrown around like children's dolls after a particularly bad tantrum. There were some empty glass containers that looked like they might have been aquariums once. Many of these had dried out plants and skeletons nestled into rocks or furniture that presumably would have been submerged. The more that they saw, the less that Dave cared to look.

 

Ahead of him, Dirk paused once in a while, staring down into rooms and surveying. “I think it might have been biological?”

 

“Probably a good idea that our filters are still working then.” Never before had he had been quite so grateful for Bro's anal-retentive maintenance schedule. Perfectionism in certain spheres was something that he and Dirk shared, but it was more useful when it came to continued survival in the field.

 

Dirk continued musing as he moved carefully around a collapsed section of their passage, helping ease Dave over it . “The weird thing is that there were no pods launched. If it were biological and it had a slow rate, one would assume that there would have been a few selfish idiots who tried to run.”

 

“We'd have to check over the crew manifest to confirm this idea. Being that all of these beings are hella-incredible-dead I don't want to put in that effort. I want to steal their technology like the stellar-waif that I am and sell that shit on the black lists to the highest bidder. Let's just focus? And while we are focusing could we maybe not tell Rose? If she gets wind of this we're never leaving.”

 

Dave did not care why all of these trolls were dead. They were trolls – the horn shapes and fangs reminded him of Karkat and Sollux. Their other Alternian trade partners shared similar anatomy.

 

“You're boring. We'll need to set up a decomp field at very least. The rest of my thought on biologicals is this: if this was so fast acting that no one fled, we don't want to take it back to the ship.”

 

Worst day ever.

 

At least this was Dave's thought until the panel under him gave way and he went crashing through the vent and tumbled to the darkened wet floor bellow.

 

*

 

When he woke up, Dave was on the ship. Losing time that epically did not make sense. Wiggling his fingers and toes everything responded. Sitting up he found his leg in a splint and healing gel working away at a really epic looking break. That would explain the ship. Compound fracture meant bone sticking out of the skin. In turn, bone sticking out of the skin meant that the necessity of helping him overrode wanting to do further creepy-exploration.

 

This was a better thing, all things considered. Glancing to his left he found his sister sitting and quietly thumbing along her tablet, reading something with tiny text.

 

“You're gonna ruin your eyes that way.”

 

  
“I suppose then that we would just grow me a new pair.” Her mouth curved into an easy smile. “Welcome back. The sedatives that Bro used on you worked a little too well and you missed all the fun. Also, do not get up or sit up too quickly, we think you are healing a minor concussion.”

 

“Who fixed my leg and how long have I been out?” It was probably a better thing that he slept through the setting of the bone – medical issues held no interest to him. His body was a tool and he needed it to function correctly in order to draw ugly comics, make sick music and continue to hunt for the most ticklish part of Karkat.

 

“You've been down for about nine hours. And Horrus did the work.”

 

Shit, they got Bro's older-than-dirt doctor-buddy to work on him. They usually reserved calls to the dude for serious shit involving troll significant others or issues that required someone with surgical knowledge. “Fuck me.”

 

“I'll pass.” Rose tapped away at her screen, rearranging a few things and pulling up pictures. “Beyond not finding your genitalia exciting, our offspring would lack sufficient genetic diversity.”

 

Swatting weakly at her nearest thigh, he winced at her. “You are a disgusting monster.”

 

“I love you too. Here are some of the highlights of your trip.”

 

Of course either Dirk or HAL would think to start taking video when they encountered something interesting. After securing his unconscious body, Dirk glanced around the room that he had fallen into, illuminating it with one of the floating mini-suns that they had developed for cavernous spaces.

 

The room was huge, the movement of Dirk's head gave him a sense of how tall things were. It had been both functional and decorative at some time in the past. There were faded out pennants and banners rotting and fraying on the walls. What appeared to be metallic paint, glitter, or very tiny and numerous gemstones winked along various surfaces. Earlier in their exploration there had been hints of water being part of the interior design of the place, but this room sold it. It looked half like some sort of pool at a resort or an exhibit of saltwater creatures.

 

A few feet from where he hit the ground there was a pool of standing water that appeared to have leaked out from another pool-like enclosure. Being the android that he was, Dirk walked through the shallows of it, investigating further. In the deeper parts of the water sat what appeared to be a giant bun, or bean, or a cocoon. Simply looking at the image, Dave could not rightly tell what it was that he was observing.

 

“Spoil me. The mad scientist got interested in whatever that business right there is and brought it onto the ship.”

 

Rose paused the video, nudging the time-slider forward with a finger. “Basically, yes. He was curious about it, he and Bro and Roxy built a decomp field and now it's sitting in the hull.”

 

Dave hissed slowly out of his teeth. “You realize that we're setting ourself up for a horror-vid chain of events right?”

 

Smoothing her hands over the surface of the tablet, Rose seemed to agree. “Bro and Dirk both had eyes on it. So did Roxy and Mom. All of them seem to think it's okay to have, and aren't disturbed by it.”

 

“That is the whole nerd-squad. What were Jade's thoughts?”

 

“She was a touch off-put and would like to come and cuddle soon, if you are amiable.”

 

Given that she was slowly succumbing to the same thing that the rest of the Harley-English set were, Dave found it very difficult to tell Jade no. “Send her in and she can talk biology to me.”

 

Rose received a notification on her wrist-com and left her tablet up for him, the image paused on a glowing tube. There were two life-signals. The mystery would have to wait until he was legal to be up and about.

 

**[Bro]**

 

“You are Brodrick Strider the First, thank you much and you can handle this shit.” Mouthing his favorite mantra to himself, Bro looked down at the stasis pod Dirk had brought onto their ship.

 

It was a pod full of trouble brought from a Dreadnaught full of woe and ghosts. The troll inside was remarkably well preserved if somewhat emaciated. The dude seemed to have hit his adult molt, his horns had the banding and patterning he would expect from someone in full maturation. His skin had the kind of deep, charcoal-black that happened too. However, he was a gold.

 

If the timestamps on the ship, his pod, and everything else were to be believed the man sleeping ought to be dead. Granted he seemed closer rather than farther away given his physical condition.

 

The decision to pop the pod open had not been arrived at lightly. Some of the seals were failing from age. Introducing bacteria into ancient sopor might have unwanted effects. So rather than dealing with a medical crisis outright, they would just wake the guy up and see how he did.

 

That had been the plan before Dirk saw the access-ports. Seeing that, his younger sibling had bustled to his workroom to get some extra equipment.

 

The game changed significantly after that.

 

Bro had seen his share of helmsmen. Old-school engines were sad and painful. Once in a while when salvaging a ship he had come across them hanging abandoned in their pillars. Once or twice he might have mercy-killed.

He was a tiny bit jealous of some of the newer ones and their seamless integration of psionic power and data interface. Sollux was the poster-child for third-gen pilots. The guy roamed freely around his vessel and stopped in to a pilot's niche once in a while to synch his ports and internal rigging with the ship and get a checkup to make sure that his body was handling the conduction of his energy safely. Other than that he retained his bodily autonomy and boasted one of the fastest midlevel ships in the Alternian fleet.

 

Reform for the ships had come with his matespiritship to the current Consideration and her somewhat activist tendencies. It was by no means perfect everywhere, some of the old-guard admirals in deep space had no time or interest in ship-overhauls or individual rights of psychics.

 

Something told him the sleeper was probably old-school. He would have to be careful. Once the seal broke on the pod several things happened that he could not have counted on.

 

The pilot sat up and free of the slime, his eyes pulsing in a red-blue cadence to match his hammering heart. Behind him a door slid open and loud, unusual footsteps entered his workroom. Delogging his sword Bro rounded and found himself face to chest with the armor-plating of a Drone.

 

He had seen one once in an informational vid. Up close the thing was more solid and pants-shittingly terrifying than any sort of footage could have captured. Because it was tall he would have to go low and trust that they were not fast nor—sopor splashed around his clothes and his mind went hazy.

 

Trying to orient himself was not easy. The sleeping pilot had a very long tongue halfway down his throat and was tugging feebly at his suit, jamming zippers down with slippery hands. In any other situation this would have been hotter than hell and a little unexpected. Now it was awkward and fuzzy with the introduction of alien sleep medication and Brutus the murder-insect standing in silent vigil. It delogged (what the fuck, Drones had moduses- he learned something new every day) a bucket and fell into what seemed to be an 'at rest' posture.

 

Looking at the pilot and his shimmering eyes, Bro hoped for Universal Common being a language that the dude spoke. If not they were in for a world of hurt.

 

“Pailing? Is that what's happening here? Because I'm really lost and I'mma need some help before we get the no-pants party on the road here.”

 

Snagging him by the back of the neck the pilot brought their mouths together again – the points of his teeth nicking Bro's mouth. Either he was not verbal or too scared to answer. Pulling back and stepping down out of the pod he hooked his arms around the guy's chest, guiding him out of the slime. If they were going for this, it would have to be out of the goop – being able to think clearly was a prerequisite for any sort of action in the pants department.

 

Whining in the back of his throat the troll pulled him close again, hands dangling at his sides. Psiionics then, that explained how he had made such a fast trip into the pod in the first place. The pilot's body was sad – a mass of scarring and healed over burns and the crests and dips of ribs that should not have been visible. Still, he pressed his hips along Bro's and rubbed, trying to encourage. The mystery of the drone would be solved presumably after there was a spunk donation. The only way to do that was to really get into this and get business taken care of. If there was something that he knew, it was how to handle junk.

 

Smoothing a hand down the troll's suit he found the terror-slick weight of his bulge. Smoothing his hand around it he let the organ wrap tight around his wrist and wiggled his fingers down to the base, squeezing and stroking in alternating rhythms. Bringing a second hand to join the first he worked his way down lower, finding the slick folds of the man's nook. This part of trolls always kind of weirded him out, being a phallus-oriented sort of a fellow. That said, gender was a human societal construct and this was an instance of survival.

 

There was a place just along the inside of the hips that he had found most of his troll lovers went crazy over. The pilot was no exception. The man folded down around him, pleasured buzzing filling the air. The drone stepped closer, the pail clanking against its armored leg.

 

Looking up into the strobing of the guy's gaunt face Bro offered a half smile. “You'd better hope the thing is crazy. I'm not a troll and it should be able to tell that. It won't like a singular donation.”

 

The troll pressed down onto his fingers, bumping his forehead against Bro's and shivering. A few flicks of his fingers later and the pilot stared at the drone, disengaging and floating over to settle over the bucket. Bro's pants unzipped neatly, falling down around his ankles and the half-chubby he had been working on found a new life. He'd been an exhibitionist from a young age, and now it was time to put that kink to work. He was doing God's work here – this dick could save a man. Telling himself this made it a little less terrifying to kind of uncomfortably squat while a gigantic alien stranger literally floated on his manhood.

 

Three or four thrusts in and there was a dripdown of a deep ochre material into the bucket. He was not done by any means, but it was not an orgasm that needed to be chased. Instead of attacking like he expected, the drone inspected the bucket and meandered away, presumably back where it had come from.

 

“DS and HAL, WORK ON THAT.” Gritting his teeth at his computers who would very shortly be getting a very major retrofit if that whole situation were not explained and detailed to him, he scrubbed his groin off and pulled his boxers up. That was the most unsatisfying and unnerving sex that he had ever participated in.

 

“So. Hi.”

 

The pilot sat on the ground, body stained and jumpsuit gaping open. Walking over, he quietly zipped the dude up.

 

“My name's Brodrick. You can call me Bro if you like. It sounds thirty percent less douchey.”

 

The pilot blinked slowly, turning his head and watching him move through the space. Things were getting a little surreal.

 

“I know that Drones kind of turn on a fuck or die thing in trolls' heads? Someone explained that to me once. I get that. Just... for future reference we'll find you a different partner. I didn't want to do that and I have a feeling you might not have either.”

 

His companion remained sprawled, almost like a marionette with cut strings. Bro raked his fingers through his hair, walking over and taking a knee next to the guy. “You're safe here. No one's going to hurt you. Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

 

The pilot inclined his head minutely. Glancing over at his workstation his tablet was shimmering with activity. Pulling up his chat client he found a long list of messages from an unknown user.

 

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: ~~I do not want to die.~~

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: I am sorry.

BC: My name is the Battleship Condescension

BC: ~~Hello Bro.~~

BC: ~~I did not want that.~~

BC: ~~I did not want to hurt you.~~

BC: I'm sorry.

BC: ~~Did I hurt you?~~

BC: Behavioral Protocols engaged.

BC: Timeout beginning.

BC: 20 seconds remaining...

BC: 10 seconds remaining...

BC: ~~I do not want to go back.~~

BC: ~~I am tired.~~

BC: ~~I understand you.~~

BC: ~~I understand.~~

BC: ~~I can hear you.~~

BC: ~~hello~~.

BC: ~~hello~~.

 

Looking between the tablet and the guy on the floor, Bro began to feel not only sullied and unusual but a bit disturbed. There was no visible way that the pilot could be interfacing with his system that easily unless his hardware was more advanced than he had accounted for. This was a possibility and would have to be rectified. The possibility also existed that the dude's hardware was old, degrading, and very painful.

 

TT: hello BC

TT: you didn't hurt me.

TT: I don't want to do that again under those circumstances or without talking about it first dude.

TT: but I'm not hurt.

TT: Do you not want to talk with your voice?

TT: Or are you unable?

TT: Would you prefer that I type to you?

BC: interface with the system however it feels more efficient.

BC: the system hears you.

BC: the system understands.

BC: it is easier to speak to you this way.

BC: thoughts are clearer in text.

BC: the system has not spoken in a long time.

BC: it is not allowed.

TT: that is some evil empire shit right there dude.

BC: no.

BC: it is wonderful.

BC: it allows for a harmonious and structured working environment.

 

Oh damn this guy was think-programmed. It was something that the really old and crazy ships struggled with. This guy still had 'I' statements though, which was interesting. Maybe he would like to chat with the boys and he could feel safe asserting personhood. At this point all things were possible.

 

TT: I see. Well I'm glad that you see and hear me.

TT: I see and hear you too. Are you in any distress? Is the pilot experiencing pain? Do you require maintenance?

BC: the pilot is experiencing high anxiety.

BC: the pilot is experiencing rapid heartrate.

BC: the pilot is experiencing disorientation

BC: power inputs null

BC: sensors null

BC: biological sensors only

BC: emergency donation completed

BC: maintenance is recommended

 

Stepping forward Bro took a chance. Smoothing his thumbs along the guy's temples he rubbed slowly, following the dip of what would be a temple on a human back and up to the bases of the guy's horns. He had a set of two, which was kind of cool, and he swirled his fingers slowly around the bases, humming. For every stroke the air around him ran thick with static and he could see the hair on his forearms rising.

 

TT: I'm sorry to touch you so intimately.

TT: do you have a moirail that I can contact for you?

 

Once in a great while the ships they salvaged could locate a favored technician who still lived. Instead of leaving the pilots greatly injured and half crazed they instead got to stay with someone who knew them. Instances like that were Bro's favorite outcome but not regularly occurring.

 

This had been a great day for really dubious consent, but the disturbing visual of the guy's heart hammering under his ribs guided his actions more than any nascent desire to gain control. When he was calm they could figure this shit out – who the pilot was, what he needed and more importantly how in the hot fuck a drone had gotten onto his ship.

 

BC: ~~I am alone.~~

BC: ~~they are all dead.~~

BC: ~~they are all dead.~~

BC: ~~no~~

BC: ships do not have need of quadrants.

 

The pilot leaned forward slowly, resting his face against Bro's chest. The points of his horns almost touched his jaw. The feeling of laying in a lightning storm intensified. Sparks danced off of the screws holding his shades together.

 

BC: the pilot's heartrate is returning to recommended levels.

BC: proceed with maintenance when ready

 

Easing forward so as to be better to rest against, Bro looked down at the crown of the pilot's head. Some of the burns extended up and near his horns as well. They had worked him too hard for a long time. Smoothing hands down along his shoulders and the bumps of his spine, he shushed against his horns in his best imitation of a shoosh. He'd had a submissive who liked to roll over for him in a xeno-imitation of pale. He explained that the sound was a decent alternative to the buzz that trolls felt when shooshed.

 

TT: I'm going to hold off on working on you until I have a more seasoned tech with me.

TT: you okay with that?

BC: the system relies on the judgement and expertise of its technicians.

BC: ~~please help.~~

BC: ~~it hurts.~~

TT: can you tell me where it hurts?

BC: Ports 1-9.

BC: Wire-rot?

TT: That's no good dude. You wanna sleep until we can work on you?

BC: ~~No.~~

BC: ~~I want to stay awake?~~

  


The chat conversation closed itself. Bro glanced down to find his pilot watching him calmly. Patting his shoulder lightly he got his feet under him to get up. “I'm going to get you something warmer to wear. And get a pile set up for you.”

 

The pilot curved his mouth up in a half-smile and nodded. The window on the tablet reappeared, their previous correspondence erased.

 

BC: the pilot has an hour standard military time before it begins to experience biological effects.

BC: please budget your time accordingly.

BC: ~~you have a nice bulge for an alien.~~

 


	3. Double Time

 

**[Dave]**

 

Getting up out of med was going to be a thing. This became apparent as soon as Jade made her way in. The rest of his group were protective and he could understand why, but sometimes it was a touch smothering. Turning to face her, he put on his best lazy smile.

"So what is the likelihood that I get to go see what cool trouble Bro has gotten into?”

“Exactly zero.”  Flopping down into the bunk with him, his buddy and sometimes lover bumped her cheek into his and kissed his jaw. 

“You had minor surgery and fell from a high air-duct and your head is even more scrambled than normal. That sort of limits your participation to nothing.”

“That is zero fun.” 

“Shouty boyfriend is going to be docking in about an hour. Then there will be two of us in here griping at you. Should up the fun quotient a touch.”

Letting out a long-suffering sigh that he did not actually feel, Dave tucked her close. 

“Shouty boyfriend is also damaged goods and should be I dunno-recovering or some shit?”

“You and shouty boyfriend share a non-endearing trait of not listening to medical guidance. You make me and Horrus crazy.” 

“Sorry.”

Applying a tactical noogie to the top of his head, Jade shook hers. “Worried is not a good look on you. It’s fine.”   

“That whole...thing is resolved though? At least that’s good.” 

“As much as it’s going to be.” 

Quiet settled between them and Dave wound his fingers slowly through the curls and curves of Jade’s hair. “You should relax too.” 

“Don’t you start.”

“I’m just saying. You know it isn’t anything too serious. You don’t have to get mad.”

“I’m not mad. Not yet. Just don’t fuss.”

“I just want to make sure that everything is chill with you. They already mentioned that stress isn’t good. It exacerbates shit.”

“We just had a conversation about worrying - you don’t have to worry about me and I don’t have to worry either. If it gets like John and Jake then I’ll put myself in deep-cryo like they are. But I don’t have the tremors really bad yet and nothing else is malfunctioning. It’s fine. _I’m fine_.” 

Jade gritted the last out with the force of someone trying to tell themselves a lie so real that it superseded reality. Instead of arguing with her, he kissed her forehead.

“Any news on the cocoon? I want to see if it does anything cool. I don’t break my bones for boring shit. Only hilarious or epic shit.” 

Jade grumbled at him but pulled her tablet out, switching over to a video feed of one of the holding spaces. The cocoon sat awkwardly propped in a tank, most of the way submerged. Squinting at it, Jade smiled. “It sort of is shaped like a skate egg, or maybe a shark. There were old earth critters that birthed stuff that looked like that. Scared the shit out of the passengers. Well, one of them. Young and angry and entitled wanted to change ships. When we discussed the price of that he shut his trap.” 

“Of course he did. Apparently that is something typical of his surname’s line.”

 

**[Bro]**

 

Doing workup on helmsmen was a bitch and two-thirds. Hacking blueprints was hard and took time and connection to Alternian servers that held the sort of information that they needed was costly and required a slight course-correction to allow for signal strength. The whole of it had a stress headache pounding through his temples and he was no closer to answers on most of his questions than he had been at the start of this entire fiasco.

At least there were a few things that had been solved. The Drone lived on the ship they were working on, apparently the legitimate ‘Battleship Condescension’. This was rumored to be a ghost ship and had a host of attendant insanity attached to it. Dirk was working on the lore and what actual information could be chased down about it while he worked on the pilot.

The Pilot, who he did not have a good name for yet ,was settled in a pile of laundry and pillows and a few boxes just for textural difference.  Added to his accommodation was a swirl of intercrossed wires for the sake of familiarity. As non-responsive as he was proving to be, he had not floated up and out of the pile, nor had he moved anything.  

Port-caps sealed up all of his ports and Bro had found a pair of sleep-pants that could tie onto the guy’s thin hips. His arms and some of his hands were swallowed up in one of the most comfortable cotton hoodies that he had -- a prized possession as far as textiles were concerned. Jersey probably was something that kings and queens in old civilization wore because it was soft -and- stretchy. It seemed like his pilot needed something nice instead of the cavalcade of bullshit and spandex blend that he had been given before.

Once he and Dirk got his biological failsafes figured out, he lounged on the pile like a long, dark and glowing king. He burrowed his non-ass down into the valley of materials, long legs hooked at the ankles and arms thrown up over his head like he was at the galaxy's smallest and most private party. 

His hair fluffed out around his face like a dandelion now that it was dry and free of sopor. Once in a while he giggled, but it did not seem to be out of mirth necessarily. Some of the ships that he had met seemed perpetually lost in their own heads, used to being by themselves and not interacting with others. Maybe he was like that. Bro could not say one way or the other because he was not talking, and his tablet remained markedly free of messages.

When the psiionic tug happened again he was ready for it. Stepping over to the pile Bro took a knee at the intersection of a monitor box and a knitted afghan that Rose had made for him in a bout of stress-knitting.

“How are your ports feeling?”

Probably still not great. He’d put what numbing creme he could along the pilot’s skin, sprayed some nutrient salve around the area and put troll-safe lidocane patches along the guy’s flanks between his grubscars and the remainder of his insertion points and wire-wounds. Theoretically he ought to be feeling very little.

On cue, his tablet pinged with a response tone.

 

BC: ~~Good~~.

BC: ~~Better~~

BC: ~~Best~~.

BC: ~~Best tech.~~

BC: ~~Numbing creme and everything. You’re treating me like a prince.~~

BC: ~~Want to pail again?~~

BC: ~~Your weird human bulge is cute.~~

BC: ~~It looks like a hairless rodent.~~

BC: ~~And I sorta want to bite it.~~

BC: I’m sorry.

BC: Thank you.

BC: ~~I don’t want to be alone.~~

BC: ~~What do you like to be called when you’re getting fucked?~~

BC: ~~I searched all of the human words.~~

BC: I’m sorry.

BC: ~~My pan...~~

BC: You’ve just got an ass I want to bounce a quarter off of.

BC: I like that saying. Requires telemetry.

 

Looking up from the deluge of flirtation Bro studied the pilot’s face. 

“You are either the dirtiest boy that I have ever met, or really worried that I’m gonna put hands on you for not being a fucktoy. Don’t worry about that shit. I ain’t into puppetry.”

The thought took him briefly into unfun trauma town and he dug his nails into his palms to avoid the whole of it. That chapter of his life was over. They were not with those owners, he was not under that sort of behavioral directive and maybe someday Dave would forgive him. He was not holding his breath, but at very least he could use that epic string of fuckery to learn.

His tablet was shimmering again. 

 

BC: ~~Looked plenty into that shit where I was sitting~~. 

BC: ~~Stiff and STRONG even~~. 

BC: ~~Everyone knows that techs like to give it to the ship. You won't get in trouble and no one can hear us. You don't even have to haul my knees apart. I'll spread them for you~~. 

 

Fabric shifted softly as the pilot slid his legs open, the sheathe of his bulge pressed up and along the thin fabric of his pants. This shit was too surreal. Happily there was no spot of slurry to indicate actual interest, but the Pilot stayed splayed out, all of his soft points offered up in a practiced gesture of vulnerability.  

"Nah man. I'm telling you. Not looking for the B at the moment. Not even a little."  

Dude still had a strong salt under-tone to his skin that was filing the air where they sat, probably having to do with the pool that they had him suspended in. The mental image would have been pleasant if it were not simultaneously so stupidly sad. Sexy thoughts were not nearly as enticing when coupled with lifelong slavery. If this dude was much more work he would let Dirk handle the rest of the interacting. Out of the pair of them the kid was better at other sentient physical beings and making words. Dave would find this shit depressing and trip all over himself. 

"Look, I'm not good with this, but I'm telling you. No consequences for not fucking me. I don't expect you to put down the hot moves. We're gonna fix your shit, maybe update some of your wetware so it's not touching your spinal column inappropriately and then we'll figure the rest of that shit out later okay?"

It was a little hard to tell where the Pilot was looking given the constant backlight behind his eyes. However, they focused in his general direction before the man blinked and slid one knee back into place before hooking the other leg awkwardly around his waist. Pushing the ball of his heel into Bro's back, the Pilot tugged. There were only two options. Either over-balance and come closer the way that his company wanted, or fight it and possibly get zapped. He was not afraid of pain particularly, but nothing about the gesture was sending alarm bells off in his head. He edged forward, staying perched on his knees and hands. 

 

BC: ~~I'm trying to get the D right now though.~~

BC: ~~I just looked that up. D is for dick, another word for penis, male reproductive organ, you are human yes? Yeshuman. I confirmed it.~~

BC: ~~Subdermal barcode says you are from Skaia Facility 45x-13~~

BC: ~~Lot number 56. Batch 4~~. 

BC: ~~You are a slave like I am.~~

BC: I'm sorry. 

BC: I'm sorry. 

BC: ~~I'm so sorry.~~

 

The whole gamut of emotion was happening in real-time text on his tablet and Bro was not entirely sure what to do about it. This dude had some issues going on, that much was obvious by looking at him, but he did not want his personal life pried out of the cold, dark hole that he had shoved it into to keep it safe.  

"No need to be sorry. We all have our beginnings. We start somewhere and we end somewhere. What do I call you?"  

The question helped the dude get out of the fear and shame spiral that he seemed to drop into at a high frequency. 

"The Psiionic."  

That was a voice that had not been used in a good, long time. One of his fore-fangs was a little shorter than the other one. Maybe it had gotten knocked out or maybe he had kind of fucked up teeth like he and Dirk did. They both had a problem with their back teeth coming in impacted and there was some back alley business that had to be observed to fix it. He was not one to judge dentition that was slightly askew. The fact that he had deigned to speak at all though, that was very promising.  

"Cool. You already know my thoughts on how to address me."  

Talking was taking the whole possibility of further terror-fucking off of the table and this was a good thing. Stuck at an awkward angle with the dude's leg wrapped around his waist, Bro went with the path of least resistance and settled himself forward onto The Psiionic's ribs. The feeling of being gently loved by a lightning storm took him over again. The small hairs at the nape of his neck reached skyward and his shades flickered, displeased at the electronic fluctuations occurring around them. 

"You looking for paps dude? Or what? You've got a leg around me and I think you could legit kill me with your brain, so I am going to need a clue rather than trying to run away from you." 

"You're warm." The statement was a high contrast to what had been happening on the tablet. It sounded very carefully considered and precisely worded. Most notably it was not a request for further contact but an observation about temperature. 

"Yeah. That is a thing that I am. Homeostasis is a favorite human pastime." Kicking a box out from under his leg so that his knee was no longer dug into a corner of it, Bro settled.

"I like it." The pilot closed his eyes to slits, seeming to draw into himself and lose some of the frenetic energy that had peppered their interactions so far.

"It didn't seem to be warm on your ship. Set to highblood temperatures?"  

The pilot's eyebrows raised a fraction but he did not otherwise dignify the question with a response in either medium that he had expressed willingness to use. 

It felt bizarre to be the chatty one in comparison to another person. Fully out of his depth and conversational topics, Bro pulled out a tablet and flattened it along his helmsman's chest, using the slight tilt of the pile to his advantage. The screen was at an angle that kept the glare off of the place he needed to work. They could speak further, later. 


	4. A Birth, A Point of Endearment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Checking in with the Condescension and more Bro and Psi.

**[Meenah]**

When she pushed her claws out into water it was a relief. She was so new that she barely could be called a whole troll and have it ring true. The water did not have harsh edges to bend her hardening layers. There were no rocks or surfaces to bump against. Instead she spilled forward and out of her casing into the gentle hold of the water. It stung against her newly formed gills and caused little coughing fits.

Her hair was fucking everywhere and that would have to be seen to -- when she was less of a target she would find someone to help her braid it. Maybe Aranea was around? Time and a sense of where she was remained fuzzy.

There was someone else in the tank with her.

Balling up with her fins flared and her claws hooked out, she waited to see if the troll would aggress.

He sat on the other side of the tank, hair stupidly long for a lower-lord. It shimmered and flowed around him like seaweed, half obscuring him from view and the ambient landscaping of the tank doing the rest. Seadwellers did not hide. Perhaps he was afraid of her though. This was a correct thing to think, she was pretty coddamn ferocious.

Minutes crawled by and he did nothing, only watched her from his weed-hiding spot and sat like a boring rock. Quietly, she glubbed a hello, shining the lights along her forearms in a warning pattern. They seemed higher contrast than she remembered. Holding her hands up she stared -- this was her adult color. Where was she? When she had gone to sleep last she was still on Alternia. Things jumbled around in her pan -- screaming soldiers, stars, time. All of it made her head hurt terribly so she put all those thoughts to the side, not to be glanced at again. Un-balling so her plates would not stick in a hunched position she floated quietly, observing her surroundings and waiting to see what this place would bring her.

She had hatched into a new world that she did not remember coming to. This would be a new start. Maybe the rock would have something new to share with her. If not she would make a further study of her space and find something to fucking -eat-.

 

**[Bro]**

 

Lights danced along his tablet. Several screens popped up in a rapid succession, shutting themselves down just as quickly as they had appeared. Out of their enclave of clones, he was not the best with computers. Dirk had him beat in that arena, and HAL existed partially out of their combined fetish for understanding the nature of consciousness. That combined with an unhealthy understanding of what constituted a 'good idea'. HAL agreed that he was not a good idea but continued to exist alongside the neural-redundancy they made of Dave when they were worried that he was going to die. His bloodtype, shared with David and all of his high-flung ideas and photography, was hard to synthesize and harder to find stocked. Their genetic line had been shut down for too many incidences of mutation and albinism. Rather than breeding soldiers with sharp eyes and focused intent, they got lithe individuals who really needed corrective lenses and did not enjoy direct sunlight sans parasol.

DS popped up on the screen, turning on the video feed of his tablet to more accurately monitor the micro-expressions on his face.

“Sup little man?” Since his inception, Bro had done his level best to include Davesprite in things, and use words. It made the fledgeling consciousness less anxious. He could step up his guardianship game with this one and make it better.

DS: There has been a birth.

DS: And I dunno man, thought you might wanna know.

DS: Also, 'the Psiionic' or the helmsman, or whatever it is that you're calling that troll?

DS: Having a panic attack.

DS: Sorry 'bout the window cascade, but HAL and I were disagreeing and we needed someone to mediate. 90's electronics visuals seemed to be the way to do that.

DS: Not really sure why the 90's as a time period had spam composed of windows, but there you go.

DS: Got shit figured. And it got your attention.

DS: Anyway.

DS: Yeah.

“I appreciate your vigilance. Gonna go and deal with that.” Waving at the digital feed, Bro stepped out of the admin-hub, making a beeline for the support room that his guest had taken over. Tapping his door-code in, Bro looked down at the Psiionic. The man was lounging in his pile, staring at a fixed point in space. This was different from his prior behavior in no way whatsoever. His eyes were pulsing slightly faster than normal, but everything else seemed to be in order.

“Hey. Uh.”

Silence reigned.

“You okay if I come in?”

A tiny nod answered his question. Bro had tried his best to give the dude a sense of safety and autonomy. This little corner of the ship was his space and no one came into it without his say-so. 

Stepping around the pile and toeing his shoes off at the edge of the pile, Bro navigated in toward his troll-acquaintance and sat down next to him.

“My AIs say that you are having a hard time. What's going on? I'll punch it.”

The Psiionic stared fixedly forward, fingers clenching where they were half-buried in detritus.

“Okay. Maybe not so much with the punching. I could space the issue for you?”

“NO NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.”

The sudden outburst of noise startled Bro as much as his statement seemed to have upset his companion. Reaching up toward the Psiionic's face he delivered a firm pap to the side of his cheek. 

“Dude. Okay. I'm hearing you. That is not the course of action that we are going to follow. The no-bus can come to a full stop.”

The helmsman turned and looked down at him, the mix of emotion on his face a hell-puzzle with deep encryption. His lips parted in a soft panting gesture and the veins along his neck pulsed faster than they had prior.

Bro had a hard time with facial cues among humans, but mixing in old-school Alternian and socialization that he had never encountered made it nigh impossible. There was only one thing to be done when faced with challenges. Overcome that shit or fail spectacularly.

“Do you think that you could articulate to me what it is that is scaring you?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. All right. Are you willing and able to do that for me?”

“Yes and no.”

“Can you explain to me why you aren't able?”

“Yes.”

“Please do so.”

“It is confidential information. Sedition is treated with the utmost severity.”

Reaching up and smoothing his hand along the guy's back, he nodded. “Got you.”

The Psiionic's official computer tone was disturbing and showed up in their conversations more than Bro cared for. He did not really have him or the solution to the problem. Far from it, Bro felt further out of his depth than he had when he was dealing with the fact that Dirk physically refused to swallow some textures – the same textures that a lot of the replicated food had. Those also happened to be the foods that their budget would allow for. It had been hard butting up against a problem without a solution readily at hand. There was at least a glimmer of truth that could be gleaned out of all of the structure of the helmsman's answers. Programming would interfere, but his new friend was adept in doubletalk. Bro simply would have to step up his game and understand the shape of the empty parts of his answers.

“Does it have to do with state secrets?”

“Yes and no.”

“Does it have to do with something on the ship?”

“Yes.”

“Is that something organic?”

The helmsman stopped and turned, resting his chin on the top of Bro's hat-adorned head. Because he was seated most often, Bro let himself forget that the troll had a full head and a half of height on him when his feet were touching the ground. His reach was twice that of most humans. It was weird to him, being one of the smaller beings in a room. Still, moments like the one that they inhabited made it abundantly clear that the Psiionic had a generously long torso to accompany the reach of his arms and legs. 

“I cannot answer that.”

That non-answer was an answer. This all probably had to do with the stuff in his auxiliary tank that was housing their other guest. The Ampora kid would be disembarking in a few stops, the Souhma fellow a handful after that. He and the other fish-kid had fought- so everyone had agreed that it would be safer if the second guest moved to the smaller tank and the kid had his space. That whole business was something else entirely. It was just as body-horror inspiring as some of the things that had happened to the psiionic, just in a different arena of the trollish form.

Without intending to, he began to move backward in space. Mentally he braced himself to land on the pointy stuff directly behind him. He and the helmsman would have to have a carefully worded discussion about what constituted acceptable use of powers. The dude was wrapped so tight in conditioning that Bro did not relish in the idea of taking away further autonomy. However, being moved without his consent was not going to continue being a thing. It was not cute, nor was it reassuring.

Nothing jabbed into his back. Instead, long arms folded around him and shielded him from the majority of the pile. Pressed into the electric-organic scented curve of the Psiionic's neck, he did his best impression of a teddybear.

“Sup handsome?”

The most soft and luxuriously pliant, it was him.

Thunking his forehead against Bro's chest, the troll grumbled. The sparks along his horns were hotter than usual and stung. He was a strong man and he could withstand this, but it felt like getting tiny splatters of hot water on his skin and it was overwhelmingly sharp.

“Look. If you can, I'm going to need you to not get the psi on my skin. It hurts.”

The Psiionic made a noise that sounded injured. “I did not mean to hurt you – did I hurt you? Behavioral modifications in effect--”

Grabbing his chin and staring into his eyes, Bro flicked his glasses down so they could make good eye contact. “You did not hurt me. Override. No consequences. Pilot returns to baseline function.”

Tension dropped out of the troll's shoulders as if a weight had been removed. Easing up so that there was a little distance and Psi could wrap himself around his middle where the prickling was not as insidious, Bro looked down at him.

“What hurts?”

“The pilot's- my – it hurts. My head hurts.”

“Can I give you something for that?”

“Have... the pilot...not allowed to have....” The Psiionic growled, agitated by his inability to speak. Floating a tablet over in a whipcrack of intent, Psi stopped it near his face, pulling up maintenance charts, medical files and other forms that Bro was not familiar with. The jagged glyphs of Alternian started melting into Universal Common, translating themselves at a rapid rate. Some fields highlighted in a little star-scape of relevant information.

A picture began to form out of the various paragraphs.

“Oh. I see. You've got a whacky blood-type too. Something about your particular pigment-density encourages clotting and there is a risk of stroke. Dave has something like that. Not same symptoms though. Human-problems instead. Just the blood-type thing. You don't care about this. It's fine.”

Bro had never been a chatty man, but it seemed all right to mumble to himself with the Psiionic with him. The troll did not look at him strangely, nor lambast him for speaking at him, rather than to him. Idly he rubbed figure-eights around the dual set of horns under his hands, feeling pinpricks of electricity push into his fingertips. It was a painful and infuriating sensation, enough that he would have physically walked away from it in another scenario. However, his troll was in pain. This was a tested method of pain-assistance so he would do it.

There were further things to be understood from the charts.

“You have chronic migraines. Sorry dude. That's shitty. Normal painkillers do not work. Of course they don't. You're older than balls and you have a high level of stress on the veins in your head and your body's under a repetitive load. If they gave you a pain drip to keep you functional, eventually your body would acclimate.”

The general idiocy of this man's technicians was beginning to grate on Bro's nerves. Even in his most clandestine of projects, his creations had always been treated with care. Something about HAL had changed his mind regarding objects with thoughts. 

Turning his attention down, Bro was greeted with eyes shimmering and focused on him. “I'm going to make it better.”

“That's what He said. I have had a string of boys who lie to me, Bro. Don't join the line. It's a line of douches.”

“I think I have something that will work. It's a dissolvable. Settles under your tongue. The one bad part is that we're looking at only a few hours of efficacy. Will that do what you need?”

“It will do enough. I need to sleep. Can you get the porta-tentacle ready?” Snorting at the end of it, Bro had to join him in a chuckle. “Yeah. You getting the metal-taste in the back of your mouth?”

“Know my rig. We're coming up on where I would need to be plugged in anyway. I'd rather just lay back and not have to worry about getting up.”

Easing himself up slowly, Bro touseled his hand through the Psiionic's hair, pulling free and shaking his fingers to get rid of the biting-tingles that pervaded their current interaction. “I'll get your meds. When you are feeling a little better, we need to have a carefully-worded chat about floating me around. You're not in trouble, I don't want any behavioral mods kicking in. However, I don't like having my feet leave the ground without my intention and I don't like being moved without instigating it.” Sliding the lights in the Psiionic's quarters down to low, he realized the asshole was grinning at him.

“I was wondering when you would say something. You humans are very tolerant and soft. You have projectiles and I was thinking that you would use them on me if you were that irritated. It would figure then that you're just as docile as reports have mentioned.” The glow of the Psiionic's eyes calmed down to a shimmer, blurring into a soft cast of purplish light as his eyelids slid down.

“Someone that I loved very much shouted at me for a full lunar-wake cycle before he got me to put him down. In my defense, he was tired and we had been walking a long way. We'll talk about that later.”

Not knowing what to do with any of that, Bro headed off to the med-area to get both his medication and the regulatory device they had put together to modulate some of the disabled functions of the helmsman's rig. When he returned the Psiionic was sleeping. A touch to his shoulder produced something akin to a cat-startup noise, a lilting purr-chirp produced at inhalation. It was immediately endearing and Bro hated him a little for being cute. The tablets were ingested without fuss and a quick sip of water, and by the time that the two necessary cords were inserted his strange guest was back asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll check in with Dave next chapter. :D Because Davekat. Also, other shenanigans.


End file.
